Has the government 'lost touch with those that you promised to help?' asks BBCVickiYoung 'I thank him [Marcus Rashford] for what he's done,' replies Boris Johnson, 'I think he's right to draw attention to this issue'
UK experts were keen to get the good news out as soon as possible that a steroid called dexamethasone could save the lives of people seriously ill with coronavirus.
Drug trial findings are usually published in a medical journal after being evaluated or"peer-reviewed" by other experts but that takes time. The investigators behind the dexamethasone study say that as soon as it became clear that the results were so significant and of instant global importance they went public.
All of the usual checks and measures will still happen but, in the meantime, lives can be saved if doctors start giving the drug to the sickest patients who could benefit. Dexamethasone is cheap and widely available and, according to the research, cuts the risk of death by a third for patients on ventilators. The UK already has a stockpile of 200,000 doses that are “ready to go” for National Health Service patients.
The drug is generic which means there won't be the issue of big pharmaceutical companies charging lots of money for it - something that can happen with new drugs. And it’s easy to make, meaning production can be scaled up quickly to get it out to more patients around the world.
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